Mike - Part 1 of Ezine/Newsletter Advertising Tutorial

[You are receiving this email as an AdMinder subscriber. Removal instructions found at bottom]. Dear Mike, A few days ago you had signed up for our advertising marketing course and tutorial. This is the first part and we will mainly be speaking about Ezine Advertising simply because it's probably one of the most (if not the most) effective form of advertising. So, we'll start with the most time- and cost-effective promotion tactics and work our way down to the "not as effective" tactics later on. Ready to get started? Let's begin ... Ezine/Newsletter Advertising Tutorial - PART 1 Many of the online newsletter/ezines contain some sort of advertising to help pay for and justify the author's time spent each week or month in pumping out a newsletter issue. Newsletters (whether they would be email ezines, web based newsletters like mine or even off-line hard copy newsletters) help the publisher stay in touch with his/her subscribers and customers. The publisher can use his/her newsletter to further build credibility of his business and/or expertise in a particular subject matter, help expand and secure relationships with his subscribers, or promote products and services for himself or joint ventures with other marketers! Either way you look at it, having a newsletter (paid or free) is very beneficial for all. Okay, so what does all this mean to you? Besides the fact that starting your own newsletter can be beneficial for sales... advertising in someone else's newsletter can also be extremely beneficial for increasing your sales! Now, here comes the tricky part... where and how do you advertise?... and what works and what doesn't? The following topics will be covered on this page: Where Should You Advertise? Things To "Watch Out" For Subscribe First, Pay Later The More The Merrier Writing A Winning Ad = Big Bucks Testing = More Profits & Less Losses Where Should You Advertise With over 140,000 newsletters and email lists on the Internet, this can be very difficult. The first thing you must do is narrow your search down to your specific topic or subject matter. If you're selling nutritional supplements, then you would need to look in 'health' and 'sports' based newsletters. If you have an online business, you would need to look under topics of 'business' (or more specifically, 'home-based' businesses), 'marketing' and 'advertising'. A great place to start your search is www.topica.com which is a huge mailing list directory where you can search thousands of lists by subject matter and/or keywords. Or maybe you already subscribe to various ezines related to your industry. Those are a great place to start, especially since you should already be familiar with them, the quality, etc. Things To "Watch Out" For Before you set out your search for the 'ultimate' newsletter to advertise in, you first have to make sure they meet the following criteria: 1. Who's subscribing to the newsletter? This goes hand-in-hand with the subject matter of the newsletter ... you've got to make sure that you're hitting the correct target market. If not, you're wasting precious time and money. Here's something you want to double check... Email the publisher of the specific newsletter you want to advertise in and ask him/her if all the subscribers are "opt-in"? What this means is that all the subscribers of that particular newsletter have asked to be subscribed to that newsletter... they have "opted in". They have filled in a form with their name and email address manually (some places just an email is fine for a subscription.) If the list isn't 100% opt-in, then forget about it because chances are the subscribers of that newsletter have been spammed. This means that the list usually consists of people who do not read and/or are not interested in the subject matter of the newsletter. So, if a particular newsletter has a "so called" list of 10,000 subscribers, only a few hundred may actual have any interest to read it and therefore, you're going to get a super low response rate to your ad (not to mention waste time and money!). 2. What's actually in the newsletter? One thing you don't want is a newsletter that's filled with nothing else but dozens of classified ads. This is a waste for you because your ad will just get lost with everyone else's. Try to find a newsletter with less than 15-20 total ads... preferably less than 10! Ideally, you'll want a newsletter that contains 1-2 good, informative and ORIGINAL articles. Anything old, outdated or rehashed will guarantee low readership. Note: If you advertise in a low quality ezine (either the subscriber base is not 100% opt-in and/or the quality of the content itself is not that good) your ads will get a horrible response. That's why it's so important that you TRACK the response, and the sales generated, by all of your ads. Using an automated system like AdMinder will let you weed these profit-robbing ezines out of your ad campaigns ASAP with the least amount of hassle. 3. Any sponsor ads? This isn't a "requirement," but sponsor ads will outperform regular classified ads every time. If you don't know what a sponsor ad is, it's basically an expanded/larger classified ad, that's posted first and before all the other classified ads. The best sponsor ads are the ones that come first in the newsletter... before everything else - including the articles (it'll be at the very top). This way, the subscriber or potential customer first sees the sponsor ad, then reads the article(s) and other ads. It hits him/her first, when things are fresh and their eyes/mind aren't tired. But, the draw back to sponsor ads is that they will cost more than regular classified ads. So, sponsor ads may be best saved after you have found and tested the best classified ad(s) and newsletter list(s). This way, you won't waste any money! Ezine/Newsletter Advertising Tutorial - PART 2 I think the above is enough information for one sitting. The last thing I want to do is confuse you or overwhelm you with too much information too soon. In the next few days, we will continue with "Part 2" and I'll reveal to you why most people screw up ezine advertising and lose money. I'll also show you some quick and effective ways to get the most out of each ad, and even how to write a winning ad. Until next time, keep on advertising ... and make sure you are tracking EVERY promotion you do. The numbers don't lie and the few minutes you put in tracking and managing your promotions will pay off MANY times over. I can guarantee you that. Warmest Regards, Sam Robbins Founder AdMinder P.S. If you haven't already, at the very least give adminder a free 14 day trial and see how it works and how you can benefit from it. Removal Instructions: You are subscribed to the AdMinder Free Web Advertising Course. Click here to remove yourself from this list.